Imprisoned Heir Read online

  “Strip, now,” the guard commanded again, this time with more force.

  I looked to the other guards in the room. All seemed to be deferring to him.

  “Fine, fine,” Frost said flippantly. “If you wanted to see me naked that badly, you could have asked nicer.” She made a show of pulling her shirt above her head and unclasping her bra before shimmying out of her bottoms. I turned away, my cheeks flushing with warmth. Although I’d turned from her, in my periphery vision, I saw her hand drop her underwear to the floor with expert showmanship.

  They couldn’t ask us to do this once we were already in the privacy of our cells?

  “Better?” Frost asked, her voice laced with barely bridled venom and sarcasm.

  “Turn around and move your hair,” the guard said.

  Frost sighed heavily and did so. He walked over to her, a device in his hand that looked like a pen or a syringe, but it was glowing with magic. I swallowed hard as I watched Frost pull her hair to the side. The sea fae guard clamped his free hand on her shoulder. To keep her in place, I realized, as he drove the pen-like-syringe into her skin like a tattoo gun.

  Frost cried out as he carved a magic rune into the bottom of her neck on one side, and then a second on the other. When he was done, Frost was left with two glowing teal rune tattoos. As he finished, he checked her over as if she were somehow hiding weapons or other threats on her person.

  Frost’s jaw clenched as the guard backed away and looked toward the rest of us, an eyebrow raised in expectation.

  Oh, hell no. I was not going to seriously expose myself like that to an entire room full of people. I was innocent! I shouldn’t have even been here.

  Yet I was. And there was no way out of this.

  Titus seethed and disrobed next. I turned away from him to give him a modicum of privacy, but not before catching sight of the red dragon scales that ran in bands across his back and torso and much farther south. My cheeks warmed again as I focused on the ground before me. Titus let out a small grunt as the tattoos were applied then took heavy footsteps away from the guard.

  “You next,” the guard said as he approached me.

  My eyes fluttered up to his, and I couldn’t help the pleading look that overcame my face. I opened my mouth to speak, to claim my innocence again, when the guard held up his hand.

  “I’m not interested,” he said, his cerulean stare with flecks of silver as hard as his jaw. Silver like sea fae nobility.

  My stomach dropped as the guard reached out for my shirt. He had said he’d strip me if I didn’t do so myself.

  Gods. Those nobles Eos had murdered, had they been this man’s friends? Was that why his hatred of me seemed worse than the others’?

  I stepped back and knocked his hand away. “I’ll do it.”

  The guard seethed. His massive, muscular shoulders rose and fell with each breath as if he were measuring both them and his response to me. His free hand became a fist in front of me, and for a moment, it was easy to imagine him strangling me right here and now. His rage rippled off of him in waves.

  Just to my right, Dax watched this exchange with a smirk that didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  “Oh, come on, girlie,” Frost said. “We’re all in this together. And we’ve already seen plenty thanks to that shirt of yours.”

  Don’t remind me. I swallowed hard and lowered my gaze as I reached for the bottom of my shirt. The guard watched my every move, as if terrified I’d turn around and kill him, too.

  Eos, you really fucked up this time.

  I lifted my shirt slowly and then my bra, wanting to drag this out as long as possible, as if doing so would make everything go away. The prison, this search, and the tattooing. Dax’s worried smirk. The memory of seeing those slain sea fae nobles.

  It then occurred to me that if this guard really was friends with one of those slain nobles, and if he hated me that much, if he was so scared I’d attack, that maybe Eos’s personality was okay to lean into. Maybe it would even save me. If I couldn’t escape by being innocent, I wouldn’t survive in here very long by lowering my gaze and being submissive, either.

  I lifted my gaze to the guard’s and shot his rage-filled look back at him. I raised my chin as he had and cocked my hip. You can strip me, mark me, imprison me. But you’ll never break me.

  A tingle of excitement ran through me, and again when the guard’s mouth twitched. My stare had had the intended effect.

  I threw my shirt and bra over my shoulder and tossed them to the ground the way I’d seen Frost do. Now, my small breasts were free to bare. At this, Dax’s smirk became genuine. He licked his lips.

  A chill coursed through me. I shifted to keep from shuddering beneath this guard’s gaze. I slid down my bottoms and underwear with much less showmanship and turned before he asked me to. Now, I stood only an inch or two from the wall, my breath warm against the cold sea stone.

  I couldn’t see the guard anymore, but I felt his presence behind me like a warm fire. He stood so close to me now that I was convinced he could hear every heavy heartbeat thudding in my ears. I took slow, anticipation-filled breaths as the guard reached out. His fingertips brushed my neck and although I should have been revolted at my captor’s touch, his contact was surprisingly gentle. My magic slid across my skin, passively seeking out this stranger’s own magic. It was instinctive, this reaction. Especially amongst fae of the same heritage. But what I didn’t expect was the way his magic pulsed in reaction mine, heavy and rhythmic like a melody.

  My head lulled to the side as he brushed my hair over my shoulder to my front, his magic still intermingling with mine. Every touch of his fingertips felt like a new wave of tingles coursing through me from his magic. Our power danced and caressed each other, leaving little swirling eddies along my body that sent longing shooting straight to my core.

  Holy… I’d never felt this sort of reaction before from my magic mingling with others. As refreshing as a sunny day in winter, but as powerful as a hurricane, our magic met again and again in a dizzying dance that left me breathless. I reached before me, touching my fingers against the cold sea stone wall for support.

  This was powerful. Magnetic.

  The kind of feelings fated mates had.

  The guard’s breath caressed my neck, hitching as I thought the words almost as if he could somehow hear them. Slowly, he raised one hand and touched the tattooing device to my skin. This was where his gentle touch disappeared as he rammed the needle against me as if he hadn’t at all felt what I just had.

  The shock of the ice-cold ink and magic sent me staggering forward against the wall, my palms and breasts flat against the stone. I clawed the wall for grip as he tattooed the first mark into my skin. Then the second rune. Only vaguely was I aware of how this must have looked, me pressed naked against a wall with a guard at my back, but before I could wonder how large Dax’s smirk had grown at this sight, the guard’s touch—and the needle—was gone. For a moment, I thought I was in the clear, but then I remembered the real purpose of having us strip naked.

  The realization hit me as the guard’s free hand skimmed down my back and sides. His touch tickled as he explored, finding no weapons or lockpicks or anything else I could possibly use to escape. His magic, though, slid across my bare skin like the last tendrils of night before the sun rose. Goosebumps raised on my arms as the sensation of his magic hummed against me with renewed passion. I startled, backing against him involuntarily as his fingertips brushed my now mostly healed injury on my side. My cheeks flushed again as my naked body made contact with his armored one. I pushed forward against the wall and away from him as much as humanly possible.

  “Sat-Satisfied?” I asked as he finally stepped back. Shit. Did my voice just waver because of his touch? More importantly, was it possible this man was my mate? It certainly felt like it. As if just from our magic intertwining, I’d felt the entire world open up wider.

  The guard roughly spun me to the front so that his next words could sting me di
rectly. “Now that you’re imprisoned, marked for tracking, and striped of your powers, yes. You killed those closest to me. You are a traitor to the sea court and a murderer. I hope you rot in Atlantis forever. You will rue the day you ever crossed Zavian Duna and killed my brothers.”

  My mouth dropped open. His brothers.

  Zavian’s words bore through me right to my soul because it wasn’t I who had done those things. Maybe that was also why, while his words stung, I couldn’t stop from imagining him pushing me up against the wall once more and doling out a very different sort of punishment. One only a fated mate could provide. With the way his magic rippled across me and met mine, it was easy to dismiss his hatred of me as though it were only hatred of Eos.

  Zavian steamed away from me and marked Dax last. Like Titus, Dax didn’t seem to care so much about being naked before the guards or Frost—or me, for that matter. I glanced away to give him privacy, anyway.

  I hated this place. I hated these people. And moreover, I hated the way this place made me feel. Even the tingles of excitement and erotic prison fantasies. This is the worst time for this. Surely, he’s not your mate, just a hot dude and you’re horny as hell from years of not being laid. I coughed to clear my thoughts.

  Once we’d all been striped, marked, and searched, a new guard entered the room and threw teal uniforms at us. I hurriedly zipped mine on, not wanting to be laid bare for everyone to see anymore. The uniform hugged my body close, still not leaving much to the imagination. At least the fabric was thicker than the thin shirt I’d been wearing before. The neck of the uniform, though, was short enough to keep the glowing runes on display if my long hair wasn’t in the way.

  As soon as everyone was clothed once more, Zavian packed up his metal briefcase and picked it up from the table.

  “Welcome to the Atlantis Institute for Dangerous Criminals,” Zavian said. I watched his full lips move and was unable to break my mind away from replaying the wall fantasy. Not to mention the way his magic pulsated against mine as though we were one. “I’ll give you a brief overview of your stay.”

  What the hell was wrong with me? He was a prison guard in Atlantis Prison, brother to the very sea fae Eos had killed. He hated me, and I didn’t particularly like him, either. Not just because of this whole prison situation, but because he was an ocean-dwelling sea fae. The stuck-up kind who hated half-blood surface-dwellers like me. Yet here I was, fantasizing about those full lips kissing mine as he pushed me against the wall not two feet behind me.

  I blinked the fantasy away and sucked in a deep breath. He smelled like bonfires and sea salt, salt I wanted to lick off what was probably a hard, muscled chest beneath that armor.

  Zavian cleared his throat. For a moment, his gaze flickered to me before returning to the other inmates. “The four of you will join the rest of the inmates now. Lights out is in an hour. Breakfast and dinner are at the same time every day, and both are followed by counts at your bunks. The Institute is a prison, make no mistake. Those tattooed runes mute your magic as well as track your whereabouts inside the prison.”

  At this, he paced toward the door to the room so that all of us were in his line of sight. “But there is a chance that your respective life sentences can be—well, I wouldn’t say lifted. They may be reduced in a way if you’re able to show you’re reformed and also survive not only several trials but also the prison itself. We can discuss that more tomorrow.”

  Zavian snapped his fingers, and the guards each took one of us and began leading us out of the room.

  Reformed? A reduced sentence? Hope threatened to bloom in my chest, and I allowed it to overwhelm me. That should be easy, to prove I’m reformed, since I was in fact innocent. As long as Eos didn’t get in the way, or take over and do anything stupid.

  But every time I went to sleep in this prison, I’d have to worry she would take over even more than I did on the surface. I couldn’t afford her antics right now. Not if I wanted to leave here alive.

  7

  Nyx

  As the guards led me back out the door and to the runic teleportation circle, I ran through the various scenarios in my head. I was stuck here in this prison, there was no denying that. However, what I’d once thought was a death sentence might actually not be. Granted, Wall Guard hadn’t given context to “reduced” sentence, but…

  Wall Guard. Seriously, Nyx? But even from out here, Zavian’s magic caressed my own. Only the sea fae pushing me into the teleportation circle and activating it cut off another line of thought involving a cool stone wall, the fae guard, and me.

  Before I knew it, we were on the floor with the main cell block. The guards marched all four of us past rows of cells packed two each with various other inmates. Witches, vampires, shifters, warlocks, fae… they all called out to or sneered at us. The fresh blood. And I swore our guards were taking us down the longest route possible to the cells we’d call home.

  Finally, we were thrown into two cells opposite each other in the narrow hallway. Frost and I were given one cell, and the guys got the other. The cell door slid shut with a harrowing finality behind us. I went to grab the bars and peer down the hallway as far as possible, to gain a sense of familiarity with the prison, but Frost yanked me back.

  “Don’t.”

  “What? Why the hell not?”

  Frost pointed to the bars. “Look closely. It’s iron. Everything metal here is.”

  For the first time since meeting Frost, her expression genuinely reflected emotion beyond sarcasm. Her drawn eyes glanced around our small cell, fifteen feet long and seven feet wide. The only furniture in the room was a set of bunkbeds, a water fountain with a basin to wash in, and a toilet.

  “It’s classy,” I said for some levity.

  Frost chuckled dryly. “If this is what you call classy, I’ve got some news for you. Starting with I’m calling the top bunk.”

  I nodded, pressing my lips into a thin line. Considering I’d probably need a friend in here, I wasn’t going to argue with Frost about something as minor as sleeping arrangements. “Sounds good.”

  Frost wasted no time climbing right up to her new home and lay on her stomach, facing the guys in the cell across the way who were already locked in a heated argument.

  “You’re a vampire. Don’t you already sleep underground?” Titus’s scales glowed again like embers in a dying fire. Zavian had said our powers had been taken away. Yet here Titus was, with fire literally burning beneath his scales. Maybe he only meant our magic was muted. That was likely, since fully taking away someone’s magic was forbidden even in the sea court, last I’d checked. Doing such a thing completely was volatile at best for the spell caster, deadly at worst.

  Dax leveled Titus with a withering look. “And what, because dragons can fly you should have the top bunk? You’re not a real dragon. Move over.” Dax shouldered past Titus and gracefully climbed to the top bunk like a jungle cat ascending a tree to perch and wait for prey.

  Titus’s breath literally exhaled smoke as he watched Dax move. With a final huff, he resigned himself to sitting on the bottom bunk.

  Whoa. Titus must have been powerful if even after the rune markings on our necks, his magic still flared like that. Wall Guard—dammit, Nyx—had also mentioned a tracking rune too. Which meant the runes held a twofold purpose. Purpose that would be desperately needed to recapture us if we tried to escape. I wasn’t planning to do that. But in case of that unlikely escape scenario, I tucked the information away for later. Maybe if I could remove the rune marks somehow…

  “What’s on your mind?” Frost asked from her bunk.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  She propped her head up on her hands. “Please. I saw the way you collapsed against that wall as the guard touched you. What’d you do to that guy? All he did was glare daggers and threaten you.”

  I remembered the rage in his eyes and his threat for murdering his brothers. Things Eos had done. No one in the sea fae kingdom had believed me when I’d tried telling the aut
horities my side of the story. All they’d cared about was swift justice for the murdered nobles.

  Would Frost believe me about Eos? Had Frost actually met Eos on the transport when I’d blacked out?

  “Nothing,” I said, and that was the truth.

  Frost’s eyes narrowed. “I know what you did, Nyx. Like I said, I did my research.”

  “Good for you.” I didn’t want to talk about this. Least of all to one of my fellow inmates.

  “I just wanted to say good work,” Frost said as she turned over onto her back. “The sea court has done a lot of shit to the other fae kingdoms and courts. I only wish I’d had done it myself. Stabbing those nobles through with iron must have been so satisfying.”

  For Eos, I was sure it had been. Unfortunately, my only memory of the encounter was waking up covered in blood.

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Beyond our cell, the other inmates’ hoots and hollers continued until the lights suddenly went out for the night. I lay back in my bunk and shut my eyes.

  Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be locked away in any prison, never mind the Atlantis Institute. However they masqueraded it, imprisonment here was like a life sentence no matter what that “sentence reduction” might be.

  Good thing I was used to being a prisoner in my own body. Not that it had been my choice. All I’d wanted was a way to remove the death curse that had been placed on my sister. And now… now I might never find a way.

  “There’re a lot of things neither of us may be able to do.”

  I sat straight up, my eyes open wide in the darkness. “Who was that?”

  “Huh?” Frost asked sleepily.

  “Careful, or she’ll suspect. You don’t want her to know about me, do you?”